Lisa Gersh of Goop: Treat Meetings Like Improv Sessions

Lisa Gersh, chief executive of the wellness company Goop.CreditCreditEarl Wilson/The New York Times

This interview with Lisa Gersh, chief executive of Goop, a wellness company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. Tell me about your early years.

A. I grew up in the Bronx, and my parents both worked. My mom had the greatest impact on me, in terms of always telling me that I could do whatever I wanted to do. You need your parents to tell you that because sometimes when you’re just hanging around in seventh grade, it doesn’t quite feel that way.

We grew up pretty poor. My parents both lost their jobs when I was 11, and I understood at a very early age that I was going to have to make things happen for myself. I realized that babysitting for a dollar an hour was never going to get me anywhere, so I read an ad in the newspaper for umpires for girls’ softball. They didn’t have an age requirement. So I went to five classes, and I got my degree in umpiring girls’ softball. These girls were older than I was, and I made $5 a game.

I was a pretty entrepreneurial kid. I always had a job in high school. I got a job at the Foodtown grocery store, and because it was unionized, I got time and a half on holidays and double time on Sundays. The work could be really boring, so I figured out how to make it more challenging. I memorized all the prices in the store. I was the human scanner. It almost became like a circus show. People would come in my lane just to watch me do it.

And when I was a waitress, I never wrote down anyone’s order. It would really annoy customers because they were sure I would get it wrong, but I never did, even when there were 12 people. To this day, when I go out to dinner, I absolutely know what every single person has ordered. And when the waiter walks over and can’t remember who ordered what, it drives me crazy. Why can’t you remember? You wrote it down.

When you think about your leadership style today, do you see your parents’ influence?

My mom was a great listener, and so much of leadership is about listening and really taking in all the information but ultimately being able to make a decision.

Listening seems like an increasingly rare skill, particularly with all the distractions from technology.

Active listening is hard. I think people do have trouble focusing and concentrating. But active listening is so important for leaders because, often, when people come into your office, they don’t really want to tell you everything. So if you’re not actively listening, you’re going to miss it.

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Lisa Gersh, chief executive of the wellness company Goop.CreditEarl Wilson/The New York Times

What were some early leadership lessons for you?

A mentor, Geraldine Laybourne, gave me a great lesson when I had my first child. She said the best way to control the “terrible 2s” and make your kids happy is to learn how to say “yes.” It doesn’t mean giving them everything they want; it means directing them to something else.

The same thing is true in business. It’s about learning to say yes. People pitch ideas all the time, and I find that others in the room can often want to say no and talk about why it’s not a good idea. A bunch of really smart people can kill any idea. You can always find out what’s wrong with an idea, but you can’t necessarily find out what’s good with the idea.

And so the first thing she said to me when we were starting Oxygen Media is to learn how to say yes. Listen to people’s ideas almost like an improv session, and play with the ideas. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to do the idea. It just means you’re going to listen to the idea and work on the idea.

The other thing that was really interesting about managing in a creative company was learning how to deal with creative people because, as a lawyer for many years before that, I was not known as a creative person. When you’re in a legal or business meeting, you don’t egg people on. You pretend like you don’t care. It’s almost like buying a house. You sit with your arms crossed and you pretend like you’re not excited. And it could be the greatest idea in the world, but you don’t want to show your hand.

But a creative meeting is different. If someone’s coming in with their creative idea, they’re baring their creative soul. And if you sit there with your arms crossed and you don’t say anything, they’re really not going to give it to you.

My partner at Oxygen took me to every meeting early on because I didn’t know anything about the business. At one point, I said to her: “You never take me to the creative meetings. Why not?” She said: “Because you sit with your arms folded across your chest and it’s not good for creative meetings. You have to learn ‘the nod.’” I said, “What’s the nod?”

And the nod is when you lean in and you nod your head and you keep nodding your head when someone is pitching an idea. That way, they get more and more excited about the pitch and they give you their best work. So you have to learn the nod.

How do you hire?

If I’m hiring for my team, I want them to tell me they want to be the C.E.O. at some point. I want them all to be training to be C.E.O.s, to feel the same kind of ownership that you do when you’re a C.E.O.

But with everyone I interview, I’m always looking for smart. And I don’t mean academically smart. I mean someone who’s really had to use their intellect to move forward. You can tell that pretty quickly.

I also like people who’ve had to be somewhat independent in their life, and they’ve done something that’s a little bit off course — like they were an art history major but then decided to be a coder, and that’s their passion now. I like inconsistencies because I think they’re going to think more broadly.

Each week, Adam Bryant talks with top executives about leadership. Follow him on Twitter: @nytcorneroffice. This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page BU2 of the New York edition with the headline: Treat Meetings Like Improv Sessions. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe